Creating a promotion group

This feature is available to retailers only.

This page walks you through setting up a Retailer Promotion group in Ads Manager. Creating a promotion group takes about 5 minutes.

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Before you start, make sure you know the promotion type you want to create (dollar off or percent off), your minimum amount, your savings amount, your total budget, and which customers you want to target. You cannot change some of these settings after the promotion is launched. See Billing and budgets for promotion groups to understand how charges are calculated.

Create a promotion group

1. From the Ads Manager dashboard, click Library in the left navigation, then select Promotions.

   If you don't see Library in the navigation, your account may not have Retailer Promotions enabled. Contact your Instacart representative.

2. Click Create promotion group in the top-right corner of the Promotion groups page.

3. Name your promotion.

   Enter a name for internal tracking. This name is not shown to customers. Choose something descriptive, such as "Spring 2026 — $10 off $50".

Step 4 — Choose your promotion type

Select one of the following:

• $ off basket — Customer receives a fixed dollar discount when they meet the minimum amount.
• % off basket — Customer receives a percentage discount when they meet the minimum amount.

warning

You cannot change the promotion type after launching. If you need to change the type, you'll need to create a new promotion.

Step 5 — Set your discount details

Fill in the discount parameters based on your promotion type:

Field	$ off basket	% off basket
Minimum amount	Enter the dollar amount a customer must spend to qualify (e.g., $50.00).	Enter the dollar amount a customer must spend to qualify (e.g., $30.00).
Savings amount	Enter the dollar amount to discount (e.g., $10.00).	Enter the percentage to discount (e.g., 15%).
Maximum discount amount	N/A — the savings amount is a fixed dollar value.	Optional. Set a dollar cap on the maximum discount per redemption (e.g., 15% off, up to $20).
How it shows to customers	"Spend $50, get $10 off"	"Spend $30, get 15% off"

6. Set your promotion schedule.

• Start date (required) — The date your promotion goes live. If today, your promotion will go live within two hours. If a future date, it goes live at 12am PT on the chosen date. Promotions cannot be backdated.
• End date (required) — The date your promotion automatically stops serving, or sooner if the total budget is exhausted before this date.

Choose banners

If your account includes more than one banner, select all banners or only a subset. There is no limit on how many banners you can select.

When a promotion applies to more than one banner, Ads Manager treats the selected banners as one combined audience group. Audience eligibility is evaluated across all selected banners, not separately for each banner.

Reporting for a multi-banner promotion is aggregated across the selected banners. You cannot drill down metrics by individual banner.

Region targeting is not available for multi-banner promotions.

Step 7 — Choose your targeting

Use behavior shortcuts to define the audience for your promotion. Shortcuts are listed in order of customer intent — New to Instacart is low, Loyal buyers is high.

• New to Instacart. Customers with fewer than 5 purchases.
• New to category. Customers who have not bought from selected categories in the specified time period.
• Buys category, not from me. Customers who have bought from selected categories but not from your retailer.
• Interacts with category but doesn't buy. Customers who have interacted with selected categories but have not bought from your retailer.
• Lapsed buyers. Customers who have bought from your retailer in the past but have not bought recently.
• New to retailer. Customers who have never placed an order from your retailer.
• Loyal buyers. Customers who regularly buy from your retailer.

If the promotion applies to more than one banner, audience definitions apply across the selected banners as a group:

• New to retailer targets customers who have not ordered from any of the selected banners in the lookback window.
• Lapsed buyers targets customers who previously ordered from at least one selected banner, but have not ordered from any selected banner within the active window.

If you select more than one audience, using or expands who can qualify. Using and narrows who can qualify. The customer must match the selected audience definitions across the banner group, not for each banner on its own.

tip

You can update your targeting after the promotion is launched. See Managing promotion groups for details.

Choose locations

Use the Locations section to narrow where the promotion can serve. Location controls only where the promotion runs. It does not change who qualifies for the audience. A customer sees the promotion only if they shop at a store in the selected location and they match the selected audience.

You can use regions or store groups, not both, on a promotion. Leave Locations empty to serve at every store in the selected banner. For a multi-banner promotion, leaving Locations empty serves at every store across all selected banners.

Regions

A region is an Instacart-operated geographic market, for example Los Angeles or Austin. Each region is made up of zip codes, and each store falls into a region based on the zip codes it delivers from. Advertisers do not create or edit regions. The list shows the regions your store footprint touches.

The region list includes All regions, which is selected by default. When All regions is selected, the promotion is not narrowed by region.

Select one or more regions to restrict serving to stores in those regions. Stores outside the selected regions are excluded.

Region targeting is not available for multi-banner promotions.

Store groups

A store group is a named list of store locations. Select one or more store groups to restrict serving to the stores in those groups.

Create and edit store groups in Instacart Platform Portal. You cannot create store groups in Ads Manager. For more information, see Manage store groups.

The store group list shows each group name, the number of stores, and a preview of the first 3 store locations. Groups with more than 3 stores show how many additional stores are in the group. To see the full list of stores in a group, use Instacart Platform Portal. If a group was not given a descriptive name, it may appear with a system-generated identifier.

If you edit a store group that is used on a live promotion, the change applies to that promotion immediately. Adding a store adds it to the promotion's serving footprint. Removing a store removes it.

For multi-banner promotions, the store group list includes every store group from all selected banners:

• If you pick store groups that span every selected banner, the promotion runs at those stores across the selected banners. Audience eligibility still spans the selected banners.
• If you pick a store group that belongs to only one banner, the promotion runs only at that banner's stores. Audience eligibility still spans all selected banners. A customer who is loyal to another selected banner does not qualify as new to retailer.

Step 8 — Set your total budget

The total budget is the maximum total amount you want to spend on this promotion. Instacart automatically stops serving the promotion when this amount is reached.

• Total budget is the maximum total savings amount Instacart will extend to customers on your behalf for this promotion.
• Set a budget that accounts for your expected redemption volume and savings amount.

tip

To estimate your budget, multiply your expected number of redemptions by the savings amount. For example, if you expect 500 redemptions of a $10 savings amount, budget at least $5,000. Build in a 10–15% buffer to account for higher-than-expected redemption volumes.

9. Review and launch.

Review all settings on the summary page. Click Launch promotion to make your promotion live. If today is your start date, the promotion goes live within two hours. If a future start date, it goes live at 12am PT on that date.

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After launching, you can edit the end date, targeting, store groups, and increase the total budget. Savings amount, promotion type, minimum amount, maximum discount amount, and start date are locked. See Managing promotion groups for more detail on what you can change.